Former Union Minister and daughter of Telugu Desam Party founder N T Rama Rao, Daggubati Purandeswari has formally announced her decision to join Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), along with her husband and former minister Dr Daggubati Venkateswara Rao.

After
holding deliberations with Congress party workers and her supporters
in Visakhapatnam on Thursday, from where she was elected to Lok Sabha
as Congress candidate in 2009 polls, she said that she will be
reaching Delhi on Friday to meet BJP top leaders including L K
Advani, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitely to convey her
decision.

In
Focus

After
the government got the nod of Lok Sabha for Telangana Bill, she had
resigned from the union cabinet and also from Congress party last
month. Giving reasons to her decision to quit Congress, she said that
she was hurt with the treatment of the Congress party.

She
also added that for the last two years she was continuously
humiliated by the party high command keeping silence on the repeated
claims of Rajya Sabha member T Subbarami Reddy that he will be
contesting from Visakhapatnam in 2014 elections and Purandheswari
will contest from some other state.

She
added that she was shocked when state party in charge Digvijay Singh
asked her over telephone during late hours in the last week of
January to choose some other seat leaving Visakhapatnam. "Is this
the way to talk on such issue with a women politician that too during
late hours on telephone?," she asked.

Initially
she and her husband received invitation from TDP sources to join
their party. But they seem to prefer a national party. Her husband
was in BJP during NDA regime.

Purandeswari
refuted speculations that he has been in touch with BJP and other
leaders since some time. She said till now she is not in touch with
any party. In fact, she said that she has decided to quit politics.
But due to pressure from supporters, she decided to opt some suitable
political platform.

Indicating
her preference to contest from Visakhapatnam again as BJP candidate,
Purandeswari said that she will not pressurise BJP leadership on this
issue.